Fire and Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

quicken at her touch and to taste again the warmth of his own breath.
     "Which will it be?" he demanded. "The big house or the road?"
     "The house."
     No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Carla wondered if history were repeating itself and she was making a bad mistake because Luke's presence always muddled what few wits she had.
     Before Carla could take back her words, Luke brushed past her and began unloading the truck.
     "You brought enough stuff for the summer," he said, surprised.
     " Quelle shock," Carla muttered."The bet was for the summer, wasn't it?"
     Luke gave her a sideways glance. "I said you could back out anytime. When I give my word, I keep it."
     She took a deep breath and set fire to her last bridge to safety. "And I told you I wouldn't back out as long as I'm treated like any other hand. My word means just as much to me as yours means to you."
     He searched her eyes for a long moment before he nodded. "All right, schoolgirl. I'll show you your room."
    ~4~
    Luke set the last of Carla's baggage just inside the door to the small upstairs suite that would be hers for the summer. Standing on tiptoe, staring over his back, Carla looked at the room and made a small sound of astonishment.
     "What incredible furniture! Where did you get that headboard? And the dresser," she added, looking away from the queen-size bed. Without thinking, she crowded against Luke so that she could touch the satin surface of the wood. "The design is perfect, all curves, like running water or granite smoothed by rain. Where on earth did you find—"
     "Leave your stuff for now," Luke said, all but pushing Carla out of the room and closing the door behind himself. The last thing he wanted to do was to talk about the furniture he had made three years ago in an effort to exorcise or appease the yearning within himself for the life and the girl he could not have. "I'll show you the kitchen next, then I've got to check on one of the mares."
     Carla started to point out that she had seen the kitchen before, then shut her mouth. She had demanded to be treated like any other employee, and that's what Luke was doing. What she hadn't realized was that he would treat her like a stranger as well, refusing to answer even such relatively impersonal questions as where he had found the beautiful bedroom set.
     Without a word Carla followed Luke down the stairs. The muscular ease of his walk fascinated her. Her glance lingered on the width of his shoulders beneath his blue work shirt and the powerful lines of his back as it tapered to a worn, wide leather belt encircling a lean waist. His jeans were faded in patterns determined by sun and sweat rather than by commercial acid washes. His boots were scarred by stirrups, spurs and brush.
     The stairs ended in a hall whose floor was covered by earth-colored, unglazed Mexican tiles. Mentally Carla noted that a lot of that earth color might come off with a mop and a bucket of soapy water. The kitchen floor was of the same unglazed tiles.
      Make that several buckets of soapy water.

     With an inaudible sigh Carla noted the abundant signs of months of indifferent house cleaning. Windows were streaked where they weren't smeared. The counters, cupboards, drawers and appliances in the kitchen and adjoining laundry room had the dull shine of grease rather than the subtle shine of cleanliness.
     Luke followed Carla's glance to the far corner of the kitchen, where chunks of spring mud still clung to the baseboard even though spring had passed. Tomato sauce or gravy – or both – made an uneven pattern down the bank of drawers to the right of the sink. On the floor, distinct paths crisscrossed from the back door to the sink to the stove and into the big dining room.
     "The last four cooks weren't much on housekeeping," Luke muttered.
     "Really? I thought it was just your wallpaper."
     Luke glanced at the walls and grimaced. They were worse than the floor. He tried to remember the last